'Warm Bodies' changes game for author and zombies

Isaac Marion

On June 4, 2017, author Isaac Marion shared his brains with attendees of Lilac City Comicon. Marion is best known for his book turned movie “Warm Bodies” and has recently released the sequel to the book “The Burning World.”​“Warm Bodies” the book was part of the crest of the wave of zombie stories that suddenly became in vogue, which was sort of a problem because the market was flooded with zombies when his agent was pitching the book. The agent would focus on the story and after the person was hooked, would say it was told from the point of view of a zombie.

“People have very distinct ideas about what a zombie is and what it has to be,” says Marion. That made marketing the story a challenge because his zombies are different.

The main character in the book is wearing a suit, and he isn’t sure why.

“His clothes are pretty much a plot point” in the series, says Marion. The clothes were changed for the movie because no one knew at the time what they would mean for the future of the story.

Marion started as a writer by posting short stories on the Internet. A couple of them went low level viral and were seen by people in the industry. He says that aspiring writers should do both the traditional route and the other stuff because they could get lucky.

While “Warm Bodies” was classified as Young Adult, Marion prefers a different word for his writing.

“I like the term “weird fiction” as a genre,” says Marion.

The book is fairly biographical for Marion because he related to the zombies while he was writing them. He felt detached and numb. He says it could be a metaphor for depression.